Hey, new player here - first post. I'm not sure how to rate a item. I've come from Hearthstone, where mechanics are simpler and so easier to judge, but more importantly there are a number of resources to help identify "good" cards. While subjective, opinions on an item would be really helpful to new players like myself. I'm even considering setting up a simple site where people can vote and comment on items, sort by rating etc. Good idea? Does something like this already exist? I know there are a couple of threads on the forums about "must have cards" and so on, but the information is not really easy to get, especially when there are numerous comments disputing what others have said. In the meantime, do any of you have any tips on how to judge items? At the moment I'm mostly basing it on the quality color of the cards inside. Thanks.
I don't think there's a rate-an-item page yet But about tips... only experience can teach you. Or other experienced players I don't think it's much more complicated to build a deck here than in Hearthstone btw. Only about 9 slots to fill in CH per character
A lot of what is "good" is going to be based entirely on the build you are running. For example, an item like Dark Drewg's Mace is excellent in a build that runs a lot of melee attacks. However, if you are running two wizards with your priest, those two Unholy Frenzy are going to be dead draws. That being said, some very basic tips to assess cards: Positioning in Card Hunter is incredibly important. Any item that enhances your mobility or impacts your opponent's position should be considered, and can sometimes be rated higher than items without those cards. Items with step attacks like Dancing Cut and Vicious Thrust, boots with Run, Team, and wizard items with cards like Telekinesis and Gusts Of War are good examples. Consistency is another important factor when assessing items for a given build. It's good to think about the role each of your units is going to play for your team (heavy hitter, draw-bot, burning wizard, etc), and build them accordingly. When you build each unit, you should look for the item that will give that unit the most consistent draws. For example, if you are running a draw-bot (a priest whose role is to enable your other units to draw more cards), you will probably be better off with an item like Amulet Of Inspiration than something like Demon Charm Of The 7th Circle. Demonic Power almost always better than Inspiration, but the amulet provides you with much more consistent draws. Don't write off a card just because it has a negative trait. Traits attach themselves to your character and then replace themselves with new cards. This can enable you to cycle through your negative traits and draw your good cards more frequently. An item with two good cards and one negative trait will frequently be better than an item with two good cards and one bad one. An example of this would be Runestone (two great cards and one negative trait) over Blister Stone (two great cards and one bad one). If you are running the Runestone, you theoretically draw the trait, which then draws you a new (hopefully powerful) card rather than drawing the Fire Spray which requires your wizard to be close to his or her target and may end up being stuck in your hand. You will also need cards with negative traits and handicaps if you want to go through the quests that become available after beating the storyline. As Lord Feleran said, experience is going to be your best teacher when it comes to assessing good cards. Just keep trying new things and find out what works for you. When in doubt, just save a playset of each item and sell the rest. It's important to have options! Hope this helped!
There are some threads around with player opinions on items. Spectating high-level MP is also useful for seeing what items skilled players use. But an item rating site would be awesome! That's been on my CH wishlist for quite some time...
Yeah, as you note there are varying opinions and the fact is that I suspect a lot of people don't feel like taking the time to debate the merits/demerits of an item, but would be willing to rate items.
The difficulty in judging a cards value is that cards do not exist in a vacuum it is about items. Items have 3 descriptors (type, level and rarity). Type should be obvious. For level, the higher the level of the item the more powerful the cards generally are (relative to their type) but the higher the cost to equip. For weapons (weapon, divine weapon or staffs) up to level 6 (of the item) is no tokens, and goes up to 1 blue, then 2 blue, 1 and 1 then only level 18 items are 2 yellow. For everything else up to level 8 is no token, 9-17 1 blue and 18 1 yellow (there are more level 18 items than other levels). In the campaign as characters level up they get to use higher level items, in MP all characters are level 18 (4 blue 4 yellow) so then you still will always need tokenless items.(minor token aka blue token) (major token aka yellow or gold). Rarity is common, uncommon, rare, epic and legendary. All commons and uncommons are easily obtainable, rares take more time and effort and epic and legendaries well they take time and effort (although not nearly as much as when the game started). Rarity is a reflection of the rarity of the cards (common, uncommon or rare) but being a rare card doesn't mean it is better than a common, just harder to get. Check out the stores for more details, but there are 3 stores sorted by level which carries commons and uncommons (stock rotates daily), 2 rare+ stores (the daily deal rotates daily, Randimar's updates weekly Saturday night about 8pm ET) right now there is a holiday store with Halloween themed items and Skarl's for the items you sell directly from chests. So for a classic example an obliterating bludgeon is a high powered card (17 damage, range 1) but not each item that has 1 (or 2) are equal. If you compare the Infused Greatclub and the Colossal Hammer they both have 2 oblits but the colossal has a barge (good for controlling position) and a weak strike (only 2 points) so you need to decide if having the added power of the barge is worth having a weak strike since the other cards are about the same. Most people wind up using the infused for 2 reasons. 1 is that the infused greatclub is a rare item as opposed to the epic Colossal hammer, so more people have the greatclub the second is that it only requires 2 minor tokens , instead of 1 minor 1 major to equip, but there are people who want the barge since it is the only warrior card that allows you to position a character (push 2), as opposed to bashed which always knock directly back 1 space. You could go with an Enormous Mattock, but Large Weapon is a handicap card that is usually too much of a penalty to equip. So there is a lot to learn but here are some general guidelines. Warriors are for dealing melee damage, ideally you want to have a mix of damage, defense and movement. Step attacks (e.g. Vicious Thrust) should always be considered and range 2 attacks are great for extending reach while not being in range for the strongest attacks. So a step 1 or range 2 attack is significantly more useful than a simple range 1 as position matters especially in MP. Chops are great in SP when the mobs run up to you, but in MP with only 3 per side they are tough to maximize. Bashes are a decent spice to mix in, but they knock back characters out of range for most melee attacks. For wizards you have to decide between damage and control elements. too much to go over here but range matters (up to a point) as range 2 is dangerous, range 4 is limited and you should never need range 10. For MP victory squares are key so spells that move people or stop characters can be the key to win. Terrain attachments are powerful since they can't be blocked, but usually can be overcome by movement. Spells with encumber (cold spells) can slow down your opponents (but never less than 1 movement is possible, except all encumbers stops dodge). I'm not a wizard master, but they have many advantages due to having control and ranged attacks almost exclusively. Priests used to get a bad rap, but they have some of the most powerful cards in the current meta. Mass Frenzy, Impen. Nimbus, Martyr's Blessing are all highly powerful attachments, but priests are limited in other ways. They can do healing, but lots of heals can slow you down. They only have melee attacks (1 or 2 range) but with only 2 divine weapon slot and few d-weapons have 6 attacks, so priests are not usually damage dealers and are used as support to help draw extra card heal and buff. The exception is a "vampire" build since there are draining attacks (available on divine items as well as divine weapons) which heal the priest for each point of damage, which can let it go toe-to-toe with another melee character and come out with full health, you can read more on vamps in the forums. So it comes down to judging an item based on how you want your characters to function and minimizing cards in your deck that you don't want to draw. Generally speaking cards that do 2 things are good, more powerful attacks are better than weak ones, but a dancing cut might be more valuable than an obliterating attack if you are having problems closing in on an opponent. There are plenty of legendary items which are lame and commons which are great. As a noob collect as much as you can don't sell items until you are sure you know what you are doing and experiment. In the campaign there is no uber-build as some levels are designed to trip you up by forcing you or preventing you from a certain style or card type, I tell noobs to play a 1 of each type to be able to use your best items. But remember the AI is stupid what works against the computer will not pass against any decent player in MP. Happy Hunting.
